Wednesday, January 2, 2008

There's Barley Truth to the Story

Several media stories over the holidays continue to place the blame for higher beer prices squarely upon ethanol production. The flawed logic assumes that since more corn has been planted, then ingredients for beer like barley and hops must cost more because of it. But there's barley any truth to it. Well, actually, there's no truth.

In face of constant media myths that corn ethanol has taken away acres from beer production, the facts show otherwise. The USDA released crop reports last month that shows that both barley and hops production were up for 2007. Hop production for 2007 was up 4% and that was up 14% over 2005 production. And barley production was 18% higher than last year!

So if that beer is costing more, other factors are driving up the cost.